“That $hit Ain’t Gangsta”: Symbolic Boundary Making in an Online Urban Gossip Community

Abstract

This paper examines how commenters (N= 290 posts) to an urban gossip blog interpret the meaning of ambiguously sexual behavior: a kiss shared by two male gangsta rappers. It shows that fans use the same interpretive repertoire to come to very different conclusions about the meaning of the rappers’ sexual orientation in the wake of the kiss. Other research finds that hegemonic masculinity has expanded to include touch between men as a legitimate expression of heterosexual intimacy, yet that literature ignores or pathologizes marginalized men (Bridges and Pascoe 2014; McCormack and Anderson 2014). Our study makes up for this gap by exploring the frames and concerns native to hip-hop culture that explain how fans label the rappers’ sexuality as a result of the kiss. We find that fans are particularly concerned with policing the boundary around thug masculinity, the most valorized form of masculinity within hip-hop culture.

Keywords

masculinity hip-hop sexuality

Two grown men with funky, nasty a$$ slugs (gold teeth caps) in their mouth swapping spit. And look at how those other two niccas looking at them. LOL! Like WTF?! Baby and Weezy, for the last time…THAT $HIT AIN’T GANGSTA!

- foxxy380, Commenter on urban gossip blog www.concreteloop.com, in response to picture of two gangsta rappers kissing

Introduction

This article examines how commenters to an urban online gossip blog, www.concreteloop.com, interpret the meaning of ambiguously sexual behavior, that is, behavior that may or may not be perceived as sexual by an observer. Specifically, it examines a photograph of black male gangsta rappers Lil Wayne and Birdman (aka Baby) kissing on the lips that was posted to the Internet in October 2006. The paper centers on how the commenters label the rappers’ sexuality based on the kiss. At issue is whether the commenters re-categorize the putatively straight rappers as gay because of the kiss. We would expect this to be the case because performing even one behavior that does not conform to heterosexual expectations can cause someone to be re-categorized as homosexual (Duran et al. 2007). Further, we would also expect the commenters to express anti-gay prejudice toward the rappers once they are labeled as gay, given rap’s reputation for homophobia (Hill 2009).

We were interested in how commenters labeled the rappers’ sexuality because of the kiss. Given the ambiguity of the meaning of the kiss, we were also interested in how commenters justified the way they labeled the rappers’ sexuality. Specifically, how did hip-hop culture influence what commenters said about the kiss? What narratives did they use to explain their interpretation? We also wanted to know how norms of gender and sexuality affected the way commenters labeled the rappers’ sexuality. Beliefs about the tie between normative masculinity and heterosexuality are what made the kiss gossip-worthy in the first place. Finally, we examined whether commenters reproduced gender, sexual, or other hierarchies when interpreting the kiss. Did the fans express homophobia or perpetuate patriarchal ideas of masculinity?

This study fits with the literature on hybrid masculinity, defined as dominant masculinity that adds elements from femininity or from subordinated and/or marginalized masculinity (Bridges and Pascoe 2014). The dominant culture codes men kissing each other as a feminizing and/or homosexual act and thus a form of hybrid masculinity. Still, the hybrid masculinity literature has focused on how white, straight, middle-class men, that is, men with hegemonic masculinity, borrow from racial, gender, and sexual “others” (Bridges and Pascoe 2014). This article expands the literature by studying what hybrid masculinity means when it is practiced by marginalized men and interpreted within a marginalized subculture, hip-hop.

We argue that the kiss means something different within hip-hop culture than it would among white middle-class straight men. Thug masculinity, which includes physical toughness, sexual promiscuity and prowess, and comfort with violence, is the idealized form of masculinity in hip-hop (Ford 2011; Froyum 2013). Yet, thug masculinity also involves an open expression of tenderness between men that the literature treats as antithetical to male bonding within hegemonic masculinity (Oware 2011; Bird 1996). In that sense, the kiss may not represent hybrid masculinity, if that concept is defined as an appropriation of practices from gender or sexualized “others,” but an expression of masculinity that is indigenous to hip-hop culture. The debate among fans on the gossip site was not just about whether the kiss was masculine or feminine; it was about whether the kiss was a legitimate expression of masculinity within the norms of hip-hop culture. Hence, the quote that begins the article insists that the kiss is not “gangsta,” that is, not a legitimate expression of valorized hip-hop masculinity.

Hip-hop is an interpretive community with particular narratives for reading the meaning of gender and sexuality. Interpretive communities are groups of people that share ways of making sense of social phenomena (Armstrong and Weinberg 2006). The commenters’ sexual worldview also affected how they interpreted the rappers’ sexuality. Sexual worldviews are beliefs about what it would take to categorize individuals as being non-heterosexual and/or sexually deviant (Brekhus 1996). The frames that fans used from the hip-hop interpretive community interacted with their sexual worldview to influence how they labeled the rappers’ sexuality.

Heterosexism, Homophobia, and Interpreting Same-Sex Intimacy

The kiss between the rappers could be read as platonic, yet we are not likely to do so because of heterosexism. Heterosexism, the ideology that only heterosexuality is normal, defines the bounds of acceptable same-sex intimacy (Herek 2004). Under that ideology, we are expected to monitor our behavior lest something we do be construed as a sign of homosexuality. The kiss is noteworthy because it violates the heterosexist edict that men should only kiss women. According to this logic, there is no such thing as a platonic kiss on the lips between unrelated, adult men.

Heterosexism maintains its power by erasing other sexualities, making gays invisible by assuming all people are straight unless proven otherwise. Yet, heterosexuality also maintains dominance by being an easy category to leave and a hard category to reenter. Heterosexuality is a hierarchically restrictive identity (Duran et al. 2007): it only takes a few transgressions of heterosexual norms to be categorized as homosexual, yet it takes many behaviors that conform to heterosexual norms for someone perceived as homosexual to be categorized as straight. The norms are particularly stringent for men. Society adopts a “one-time rule of homosexuality” for men in which even one same-sex sexual experience is enough to label a man gay in most cases (Eric Anderson 2008, 105).

Moreover, gender norm transgressions are enough to call one’s heterosexuality into question. The connection between heterosexuality and normative gender is part of heteronormativity (Butler 2006). This is especially true for men since men are more likely than women to be seen as gay for violating gender norms (Nielsen, Walden, and Kunkel 2000). Masculinity is sexualized in a way that conflates hegemonic masculinity with dominant heterosexuality (Nielsen, Walden, and Kunkel 2000; Schope and Eliason 2003). As a result, men and boys typically avoid feminized behaviors and spaces if they want to be seen as heterosexual (Eric Anderson 2008).

This means we would expect fans to label the rappers homosexual simply for kissing, even without evidence of them having a sexual relationship with each other. Indeed, the fans could label the rappers gay because of only one kiss, given the one-time rule of homosexuality (Eric Anderson 2008). We would also expect the commenters to use gender transgressions to confirm their perceptions that the rappers were gay. Thus, we expect that commenters’ investment in dominant gender and sexual norms will affect how they categorize the kiss.

Beyond Hybrid Masculinity: Examining Flexible Gender Norms among Marginalized Men

Recent work on hybrid masculinity finds that men are becoming more accepting about using touch to express their closeness to other men (Eric Anderson and McCormack 2014). The literature on hybrid masculinity argues that hegemonic masculinity, the most valorized masculinity in a given culture, dominates not just by rejecting its social “others” (e.g., women and gay men), but by adopting some of their practices. Hegemonic masculinity forms its identity by rejecting the most abject form of masculinity, which is labeled subordinated masculinity and embodied by gay men. In contrast, marginalized masculinity is embodied by low status men such as working-class white men and black men. Marginalized masculinity is not in direct opposition to hegemonic masculinity, as gay masculinity is, but it is not valorized in dominant culture either (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). While Connell initially conceptualized them as having different relationships to hegemonic masculinity, the hybrid masculinity literature often blurs the line between subordinated and marginalized masculinity.

An optimistic version of the literature argues that hegemonic masculinity’s incorporation of traditionally feminized behavior, such as kissing other men to show affection, points to the emergence of an inclusive masculinity that is not predicated on the rejection of male homosexuality and behaviors associated with femininity like homosocial touch (Eric Anderson and McCormack 2014). It argues that inclusive masculinity is genuinely progressive because it rejects homophobia as being a cornerstone of masculine identity (McCormack and Anderson 2010). It contends that the decline of homohysteria, or the fear of being seen as gay, has allowed straight men greater flexibility in gender expression (McCormack and Anderson 2014).

Other scholars argue that inclusive masculinity and hybrid masculinity seem progressive, but ultimately perpetuate patriarchy and other social hierarchies (Bridges and Pascoe 2014). They find that when middle-class straight white men adopt practices associated with women or gay men, they elevate their masculinity above that of marginalized men, like working-class whites and blacks (Bridges and Pascoe 2014). Thus, hybrid masculinity creates a symbolic boundary between hegemonic masculinity and marginalized masculinity.

Moreover, inclusive masculinity casts marginalized men as “intolerant others” who have not adopted the more progressive gender and sexual norms of white middle-class men (McCormack 2014; Barrett 2013; Barber 2008). Far from being just silent on marginalized masculinity, the literature suggests that marginalized masculinity is antithetical to inclusive masculinity. Additionally, hybrid masculinity only breaks with patriarchy on a symbolic level and does not require men to give up material privileges (Bridges and Pascoe 2014). We side with this more skeptical view of hybrid masculinity.

Still, the marginalized masculinity literature views black masculinity from a deficit lens, comparing it to the norm of white middle-class men, rather than understanding it on its own terms. It is true that the valorized form of masculinity in poor and working-class black communities is different from that of dominant culture. Whether called “street code” (Elijah Anderson 2000), “cool pose” (Majors and Billson 1993), or some other name, the content of valorized black masculinity is similar across accounts. It is defined by men dominating women, abusing drugs and alcohol, gaining respect through aggression, and using violence (Elijah Anderson 2000; Rios 2009; Flores and Hondagneu-Sotelo 2013; Bourgois 1996). This masculinity is heteronormative in its expectation that men be dominating and violent. Based on this description, we would not expect black men to adopt hybrid masculinity and expand the norms of male touch.

Yet, research that places marginalized men at the center finds more flexibility in their gender norms. Moreover, the racialized experience of marginalized men informs their flexible gender norms. For instance, Chua and Fujino (1999) find that Asian American men are more likely than white men to see their feminine and masculine sides to be harmonious. The authors speculate that men’s experience with racial disadvantage made them critical of their gender privilege (Chua and Fujino 1999). Likewise, Ray and Rosow (2010) found that straight African American fraternity men objectified women less and were more romantic than their white counterparts. Race and organizational context contributed to their greater gender flexibility, since black students were more accountable to each other because of their small numbers on a predominately white campus (Ray and Rosow 2010). Finally, experiences with racism helped explain why blacks who were tolerant of gays became so (Dean 2013).

Our study puts the literature on marginalized masculinity in conversation with the literature on hybrid masculinity. One problem is that the hybrid masculinity literature is mainly about how men perceive themselves, not how others perceive their behavior. This makes the literature less useful for explaining how fans make sense of the rappers’ sexuality because of the kiss. The bigger problem is hybrid masculinity’s focus on white middle-class men. Instead, we look to the unique concerns and interests of black men within hip-hop culture to explain the meaning of the kiss.

Queer and Anti-homophobic Themes in Hip-Hop Culture

Race and gender shape the reception of same-sex intimacy and homosexuality in hip-hop culture. Like men in general, black men are more likely to be homophobic than black women (Nielsen, Walden, and Kunkel 2000). A nationally representative survey of black political attitudes finds that black masculine identity explains why black men are more homophobic than black women (Lemelle and Battle 2004). Thus, whatever homophobia there is in the black community is exacerbated in a male-dominated culture such as hip-hop (Rose 1994).

Research bears this out showing that narrow ideas about authentic black masculinity fuel much of the homophobia in rap music. For instance, the first major out gay hip-hop artist Caushun had trouble being marketed because the homophobic, patriarchal gaze in hip-hop could not recognize the authenticity of an effeminate gay man who identified with gangsta rap culture (Means Coleman and Cobb 2007). Likewise, members of the Deep Dickollective believed that the presence of female rappers who challenged the stereotypically male norms of rap paved the way for their brand of out gay male hip-hop (Wilson 2007).

To be sure, there are still signs that hip-hop culture is inflexibly heteronormative. Hip-hop culture has sought to out rappers that were thought to be gay (Hill 2009) and some still mark “questionably” masculine behavior as straight by saying “no homo” (Brown 2011). However, there are other signs that gender and sexual norms are more complex. For instance, scholars have found female rappers such as Missy Elliot (Lane 2011) and Jean Grae (Paradigm Smalls 2011) rapping about same-sex desire in their songs. Not only are rappers pushing the norms within their music, they are challenging them within their personal and professional lives. Recent examples include that several prominent rappers have publicly condemned homophobia (Lee 2011), a hip-hop radio station embraced a popular male deejay who admitted to having sex with a transsexual woman (Solomon 2013), and a gay rapper debated a straight rapper about norms around masculinity and sexuality in hip-hop (Ashrawi 2014). These events suggest that hip-hop’s heteronormativity is more contested than it might seem.

“Thug Love” and the Expanding Bounds of Legitimate Male Intimacy in Hip-Hop Culture

The centrality of male bonding in hip-hop culture helps make the meaning of the kiss ambiguous. Since the emergence of gangsta rap in the late 1980s, hip-hop has celebrated all-male groups as a preferred form of intimacy and sociality (George 2005). Yet, there is a tension between “thug life,” a lifestyle where men depend on each other for survival and emotional support in the illegal economy, and “thug love,” the heightened sense of affection and connection between men that is created from being each other’s support in a world that hates them (Jeffries 2011). While thug life, and its tales of violently surviving on the streets with your male comrades, fits with hegemonic modes of male bonding, the open expression of affection between men of thug love may not.

Jeffries defines thug love as “a platonic bond among thug brothers” that makes the dangers of thug life bearable (2011, 104–5). Crucially, this is not just an instrumental bond where men protect and support each other because it benefits them. Instead, Jeffries (2011) sees caretaking and empathy in the way rappers commemorate dead friends in their songs and vow to keep their legacy alive by avenging them. For these reasons, he characterizes hip-hop as a space for open expression of closeness between men.

At the same time, thug life promotes an ethic of “keeping it real,” whether by telling the truth of how hard it is to survive in a hostile world or by being real about your emotions, including vulnerability and tenderness (Jeffries 2011). This ethic makes it possible to interpret the open tenderness of thug love, which is an expression of the bonding of thug life, as authentically black, masculine, and heterosexual. Thus, the space between legitimate and illegitimate male bonding in hip-hop is blurred.

Hip-hop endorses a form of homosocial bonding that is distinct in its acceptance of open expressions of tenderness among men. Previous research found homosocial spaces to perpetuate hegemonic masculinity by encouraging “homophobia, sexism, and hyper-competitiveness” (Oware 2011, 26). In contrast, Oware (2011) found the homosocial lyrics in rap to show tenderness and caretaking among men. He found at least one of three homosocial themes in 37% of songs in a sample of platinum selling male gangster rap albums from 2003 to 2008. This supports Jeffries’s (2011) finding that thug love is a familiar theme in rap music.

Yet, data on rap fans’ acceptance of and familiarity with thug love discourse tells a different story. For one thing, most interviewees in Jeffries’s (2011) study, with the exception of a few black men, did not see vulnerability as integral to thug life. Also, the interviewees did not cite thug love as a theme in hip-hop, challenging the notion that the discourse is widely known and accepted among hip-hop fans. Still, related research on “street love” suggests that rap fans may be more familiar with the tenets of thug love than Jeffries’s findings suggest.

Scholars conceptualize “street love” as an individual, group, and communal expression of care and material support that black men involved in the illegal economy show toward their community (Payne and Hamdi 2008). At the individual level, “street love” includes mutual emotional support, respect, and guidance shared between male friends or “homeys” (Payne and Hamdi 2008, 38–39). The expression of street love is thus similar to thug love. This qualitative research, based on interviews with street-life oriented black men, suggests the idea of special bonding and emotional support between disadvantaged men might be familiar to rap fans, despite Jeffries’s (2011) findings to the contrary.

In sum, homosociality in hip-hop differs in important ways from homosociality in the dominant culture. In the dominant culture, men express closeness in homosocial spaces through ambiguous gestures like humor and aggression. Men expect that outsiders will read their homosocial behavior as normative if they express intimacy this way (Kaplan 2005). In contrast, the discourses of thug love and street love allow men to express intimacy in an open and direct way in rap music (Payne and Hamdi 2008; Jeffries 2011). However, the research is unclear about how knowledgeable and accepting rap fans are of this overt expression of intimacy.

Hip-Hop as an Interpretive Community

We are especially likely to read intimate touch, such as hugging around the waist, between men as sexual (Derlega et al. 1989; Bowman and Compton 2014). Thus, we are likely to read two men of similar age kissing on the lips as sexual. In other words, the conventional interpretation of the kiss would be to see it as a sign that the rappers were gay. Another less likely read of the kiss is as expression of closeness between family members, which would preserve the common perception that the rappers are straight. Yet, the placement of the kiss on the lips tends to work against this interpretation. Any departure from the interpretation of a kiss as romantic or (less commonly) familial requires justification.

Meaning making is a social act. Kissing does not have an inherent meaning in society. Instead, kissing comes to have a definitive meaning when the individuals perceiving the act create a shared interpretation of what the kiss means (Mead 1967). Nevertheless, there are conventions for interpreting the meaning of gestures that prevent us from always deciding what actions mean on the spot (Geertz 1973). Still, some gestures are more open to interpretation than others. The kiss as portrayed on the gossip site is an open text. Fans are deciding which conventions apply when making sense of the kiss.

Knowing the interpretive lens of those reading the kiss can help explain their reaction to it. The hip-hop subculture constitutes an interpretive community, or a group of people who share conventions for reading texts. Hip-hop gives fans cultural competencies, or skills at reading a text according to communal standards (Armstrong and Weinberg 2006). Interpretive communities can also be based in social identities, like race, class, and gender. Thus, individuals can have multiple cultural competencies that may conflict with each other. For instance, hip-hop culture may point to ways of reading that conflict with fans’ racial identity. Our bundle of various competencies equals a tool kit or repertoire. Our salient identities determine which competency we use to interpret a text (Armstrong and Weinberg 2006).

Interpretive frames interact with the sexual worldview of respondents to influence how they make sense of the kiss. When confronted with unusual behavior, people either use a mental one-drop rule, which assumes deviance at the slightest hint of straying from the mainstream, or the mental entire ocean rule, which assumes normativity unless there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary (Brekhus 1996). Those who use the mental one-drop rule have a vigilant sexual worldview, while those who use the entire ocean rule have a casual sexual worldview. The vigilant worldview avoids ambiguity by marking individuals with any non-normative behavior as full-fledged deviants. It also sees sexual deviance as contagious, such that one deviant individual can brand an entire community as deviant. In contrast, the casual sexual worldview is typical of most communities today, except for conservative religious groups and moral entrepreneurs. It uses extreme stereotypes to identify sexual deviance and assumes a person who conforms to conventional gender norms is sexually normal, that is, straight (Brekhus 1996).

Methodology

As the Internet has become a central aspect of social life in the twenty-first century, it has also become a central site for sociological research. Our data consist of postings from one online urban gossip site. Unlike other research that solely examines online interactions because participants only communicate online, this project focuses on the Internet because the phenomenon of interest (the reactions to a picture that was posted on a blog) is purely an online phenomenon (Garcia et al. 2009). In other words, the photo itself and the stream of comments in reaction to it exist solely online; neither the picture nor the controversies over it were picked up by print magazines.

Online data pose unique challenges for qualitative researchers. For example, we are unable to be certain of the social identifiers of many of the commenters (e.g., their gender, race, etc.) because of the nature of the Internet (Hughey 2008). Following precedent for treating online identities as valid (Hookway 2008), we determined some commenters’ gender based on inferences from their aliases (e.g., Mr G is likely a man). However, this was not possible for every commenter. Consequently, we do not analyze differences in comments by commenters’ gender or race. In addition, we use the commenters’ aliases throughout the paper. Our decision reflects the position that aliases already provide anonymity in virtual reality (Hookway 2008).

This study consisted of content analyses of blog postings on a popular urban gossip site, ConcreteLoop.com. ConcreteLoop is a website that was created in 2005 as a place where users (more than ninety thousand daily) can engage in blog responses to headlines that are maintained by website staff and are devoted to gossip about black celebrities, fashion, and politics. ConcreteLoop.com was listed by Time as one of the fifty best websites in 2008 (Hamilton 2008). On October 26, 2006, the staff of ConcreteLoop posted a controversial photo of two black rap stars, Dwayne “Lil Wayne” Carter (age twenty-seven at the time) and Bryan “Baby” Williams (also known as “Birdman”) (age forty at the time) kissing. Lil Wayne is a rapper who has been performing on the Cash Money label (a label co-founded by Baby and his brother Ronald “Slim” Williams) since he was a child. Baby formally adopted Lil Wayne when Wayne was eleven years old, and has economically supported him since. Lil Wayne and Baby have very publicly attested that they have a father–son relationship and went as far as to title an album they recorded together Like Father, Like Son which was released in 2006.

Data

In the photograph, Lil Wayne and Baby are facing each other and centered in the photograph (Wayne is on the left and Baby is on the right). They are leaning toward each other as if being pulled together by their right hands, which are held together between them at chest level. Their lips are touching in a kiss. Their left arms are at their sides. There are three additional black men in the photo. One appears to be walking past Wayne and Baby (he is behind Wayne) and is turned away from them so only the back of his head is visible. Another man is to the right of Baby and looks as though he is following the other man. Like Baby, he is facing Wayne so that his profile is visible. The corner of his mouth is pulled up so that his eye is squinted. A third man is centered between and behind Wayne and Baby; his face can be seen just above Wayne and Baby’s foreheads.

Along with the posted picture, ConcreteLoop staff provoked gossip about the picture by asking blog participants to evaluate the kiss in two ways: (1) authenticity (e.g., was the photo real or created using Photoshop) and (2) sexual orientation of the rappers (e.g., did the picture and allegations of a former member of Cash Money Records prove that Lil Wayne and Baby are gay). The reputation of ConcreteLoop as a gossip-based website is significant as this may have allowed for lively interactions between the commenters. As of June 2009, there were 669 comments posted in response to the posted photo and guiding questions, 290 of which directly address the sexual orientation of the rappers.

Though ConcreteLoop.com is not the only online location where the kiss was discussed, it is one of only two sites that posted the photo, the second of which only had sixteen responses (“Birdman Feat. Lil Wayne – Always Strapped | Nah Right” 2009). However, a Google search revealed that two additional blogs had comments regarding the kiss. One was in response to an article about Baby’s response to the kiss and only had six posts (Jason 2006). The other blog was posted by Springer (2009), in which he quotes a radio interview with Baby, “’That’s my son,’” Birdman [Baby] explained to Westwood and the listening audience. ‘If [Lil Wayne] was right here, I’d kiss him again. I kiss my daughter, my other son.’” This blog has 170 posted comments and after analysis, we found that there were no new themes that were not found on the ConcreteLoop site, even though it was posted three years later. Thus, the stream of postings on ConcreteLoop.com was used for this study.

Analytic Process

The data analysis followed a multistep process. The two prompt questions that accompany the picture of the kiss yielded comments on several themes, including the authenticity of the picture, the sexuality of the rappers, and racial differences in gender and sexual norms. The first author analyzed comments on how commenters constructed the rappers’ sexuality and discussion of sexual norms for this paper. She found that the commenters used three labels to describe the rappers’ sexual orientation. Commenters labeled the rappers gay, not gay, or worse than gay (e.g., pedophiles) because of the kiss. The second author used these codes to analyze the other blogs that had comments on the kiss and to check if new codes were needed. However, we did not use a structured intercoder reliability process.

Because the picture was ambiguously sexual, commenters had to justify how they labeled the rappers’ sexual orientation. We coded these justifications to see what for the frames they used to explain the kiss: family, male bonding, or Mob. The male bonding and Mob frames reflected the influence of the hip-hop interpretive community. The family frame reflected hip-hop fandom, too, since serious hip-hop fans knew that Baby had legally adopted Wayne as his son. Yet, commenters also said that Wayne and Baby were like father and son without reference to rumors in the hip-hop press about their legal status, a perception that was thus not necessarily grounded in hip-hop interpretive practices.

We also examined whether fans held casual or vigilant sexual worldviews. Interestingly, fans racialized their views, such that they commented on gender and sexual norms in general and within white and black communities. We coded comments that said that norms were too tight (generally and among blacks) as evidence of a casual worldview and comments that the norms were too loose (generally and among blacks) as evidence of a vigilant worldview.

Findings

Of the 290 bloggers in this sample who responded to the question regarding Lil Wayne’s and Baby’s sexual orientation, most said that the photo proved that they are gay (163 posts), followed by those who felt that the photo did not prove they are gay (101 posts), and finally, those who believed that Lil Wayne and Baby kissing is worse than gay, because it is sexually deviant in an unexpected way (26 posts) (See Table 1).

Table 1.

Posts per Categorization of Rappers.

Category	n (%)
Gay	163 (56)
Not gay	101 (35)
Worse than gay	26 (9)
Total	290 (100)

Not surprisingly, fans who labeled the rappers worse than gay were the most likely to talk about sexual and gender norms in their comments (see Table 2). These fans held a vigilant sexual worldview and thought one gender transgression made the rappers not just gay, but sexually deviant in a troubling way. Still, fans who labeled the rappers gay were also likely to talk about sexual and gender norms and hold a vigilant sexual worldview.

Table 2.

Sex Norms, Sexual Worldviews, and Homophobia as Themes of Categorizations of Rappers.

Category	Sex Norms, %	Casual Sexual Worldview, %	Vigilant Sexual Worldview, %	Homophobia, %
Gay	25	6	13	24
Not Gay	31	12	6	9
Worse Than Gay	39	4	31	8

Family was the most common frame that fans used to interpret the kiss, followed by male-bonding and Mob (see Table 3). Fans who labeled the rappers as straight or as worse than gay were the ones who were most likely to use male-bonding (and Mob membership, to a lesser extent) to explain their interpretation. In contrast, fans who labeled the rappers gay were the least likely to use hip-hop frames, likely because they did not need hip-hop–based frames to explain their conventional understanding of the kiss.

Table 3.

Frames Used within Categorizations of Rappers.

Category	Family, %	Male Bonding, %	Mob, %
Gay	13	2	2
Not gay	57	21	8
Worse than gay	50	15	4

Gay

Most of the commenters (56%) who evaluated Lil Wayne’s and Baby’s sexual orientation said that the photo proved that they are gay. The commenters believed that the rappers were exploiting the blurred boundaries of what constituted authentic thug masculinity in hip-hop. They felt that the boundaries around gender and sexuality in hip-hop and/or in the black community were too loose. Their comments worked to mark the kiss and the rappers as outside of the boundaries of legitimate hip-hop masculinity.

A sign that the commenters felt that the rappers committed a transgression was that they were more likely to express homophobia than the other types of commenters (see Table 2). These commenters often responded to the photo with repulsion, not just disapproval.

Not only does commenter C-me express disgust, he or she also refutes the explanations that commenters use to argue that the rappers are straight- that they are enacting thug love or that they are family.

Damn!!! I just heard that shit on the radio. Now they ought to had known better. They know what kind of image they present, and them being in public sharing a mouth to mouth kiss is just disgusting. It aint no gangsta or thug in shit like that. I now look at them totally different. They are fuckin Homo. I know lil weezy look to Baby like a father but truth be told that is not really that nigga daddy and everybody no that. Plus where im from it dont matter if it is his daddy, we dont kiss lips to lips.

C-me rejects the hip-hop interpretive lens that marks the kiss as an expression of thug love. Instead, C-me firmly places the kiss outside the bounds of valorized masculinity, saying “it aint no gangsta or thug in [thugging] shit.” Other commenters were unnerved by how the kiss subverted the heteronormative expectations they had of the rappers, given their status as hardcore artists. AreYouSerious? shows this discomfort, saying:

I am not homophobic, but it makes me feel weird to see two men kiss….especially two NUCCAS [niggers]! Like, hard core ass brothas, you know? That down[low] shit scares the SHIT out of me…

Yet, some commenters were actually cynical about the hypermasculinity of gangsta rappers. They contend that gangsta rappers’ exaggerated toughness is a cover for their homosexuality. According to stinka, “i have nothing against gays… these dudes are forever trying to be gangsta’… it’s a front.” Stinka’s claim that the problem is that the rappers are not open about their alleged homosexuality, not their homosexuality itself, is consistent with the “keepin’ it real” ethos in hip-hop culture. The comment also suggests that the situation is different in hip-hop culture than what the inclusive masculinity literature finds. The inclusive masculinity literature says that a decline in homophobia is tied with a greater acceptance of male touch (McCormack and Anderson 2014). Yet, even when commenters claim not to be homophobic, they still reject intimate male touch on the grounds that it cannot count as thug masculinity. These commenters seem more concerned about fixing the boundaries around thug masculinity than with denigrating homosexuality per se. The impression is that the rappers can be gay, presumably without raising their ire, so long as they do not sully the status of thug masculinity in the process. Aashia speaks for many when saying:

I’m not suprised at this seems though people are makign a gay lifestyle a fad now im sorry i cant get with it. But in my book all that hard core rap is out the window. He soft as cotton.

Yes, the kiss makes the rappers gay (which Aashia thinks is a bad thing). Still, the greater emphasis is on asserting that the kiss means that the rappers are not “hard core,” but are instead “soft as cotton.”

As commenter AreYouSerious? notes, before the kiss the rappers seemed to embody what it meant to be “true niggas” by being “hard core ass brothas.” A commenter named mika makes this point, saying, “There’s a swagger Weezy (Wayne) has about him so I never would have thought the nigga was gay…or bi…whateva.” No one would think Lil Wayne and Baby were gay because heteronormativity fuses heterosexuality to valorized masculinity. Fans who labeled the rappers gay had to overcome Wayne and Baby’s thug masculinity to prove that the kiss made them gay. They did this by re-interpreting previous lyrics by the rappers to imbue them with sexual subtext and evidence of effeminate behavior, and thus exploited the ambiguity of symbols in hip-hop culture.

A key revisionist move fans who labeled the rappers gay made was to re-interpret Wayne’s catchphrase, “Weezy F. Baby,” as sexual. In several songs, Lil Wayne, who goes by the nickname Weezy, asks to be called Weezy F. Baby or Weezy Fucking Baby. Wayne pays homage to Baby in this moniker, using Baby as his surname and adding F for emphasis. Thus, in the song “Weezy Baby” from Tha Carter II (2005) he says, “If you gon’ call him Weezy/ Then you must say the Baby.” Instead of viewing the phrase Weezy F. Baby in context, many of the commenters in this category re-read it literally. Thus, cOREY says:

“Weezy F. Baby, please say the baby!” “Stunting like my DADDY?” Oooooooo Daddy, Baby give me that d@!k! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

cOREY also mentions “Stunting like my Daddy” in this quote, another Lil Wayne catchphrase that commenters in this category cite as sexually suspect. Not only does cOREY sexualize the sayings, he places Lil Wayne in the feminizing position of begging to be penetrated by Baby.

Commenters also heightened the transgression of the kiss by creating a sexual storyline around Wayne and Baby’s relationship. This is what a commenter called Brooke does when saying, “OOOMY Gooodnessss….All I can think about is them F*ckin NOW!!!!! EEEEWWWW The Visions…Gotta get the Visions outta my head!!!!!” Similarly, commenter asbury feminizes and sexualizes Wayne by casting him as Baby’s wife, saying, “Wayne and Baby sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g first comes love then comes marriage then comes Lil baby Jr in the baby carriage.” All of these strategies recast the rappers as effeminate and as having a sexual relationship with each other, attacking their apparent hypermasculinity. These exaggerations are typical of the melodramatic imagination by which gossip consumers heighten the transgression of actions that they view as crossing a moral boundary (Beer and Penfold-Mounce 2009).

The commenters believe that the rappers transgressed a boundary that they should not have. They explicitly reject the idea that there is any ambiguity about the fact that the kiss was out of bounds. Commenter datdude says:

My pops would beat my ass if i even tried to kiss him and I wouldn’t want to, damn this is fucked up, we men aint even pose to hug, maybe only once, but only under the worse circumstances, we do that shake, half hug shit, never the full thing, never dat.

The commenter is definitive: “we men aint even pose to hug.” The definitiveness of the interpretations shows that the fans have a vigilant sexual worldview. One transgression is enough to indict the rappers’ sexuality. Likewise, trunyfan wonders:

Has this society totally became immune to nonsense that were not able to distinguish good behavior from bad. This for all you idiots who cant realize is called brothas on the DownLow The truly sad thing is that most of the women on this blog says that the two of the them about to french kiss is absolutly normal, thats probably why HIV is amoung the highest killers of the A.A. female community.

The commenter characterizes those who doubt that the kiss is “bad behavior” as “idiots.” Further, the commenter links the normalization of the kiss with the acceptance of down low sexuality and, thus, with the spread of HIV among African American women. This comment rehashes the discredited narrative of closeted bisexual black men as the cause of the spike in the HIV rate among black women (Boykin 2004). Ignoring the boundary of appropriate male intimacy is not only stupid, it is dangerous. This also reflects the view that deviance is contagious that is common within the vigilant sexual worldview (Brekhus 1996). Black fans wanted to distance themselves from the stigma of being gay, since the dominant culture already treats their sexuality as deviant (Snorton 2014).

Finally, these posts directly refute other framings that make the kiss seem legitimate. As we will see, these framings overlap. They each reference parts of the hip-hop cultural repertoire to frame the kiss as within the bounds of hip-hop masculinity. For instance, rappers have been drawing on Mafia imagery at least since the emergence of gangsta rap (Quinn 1996). Additionally, the idea that rappers are like family or very close friends fits with the thug love and street love themes in rap and with the lived experiences of urban men involved in the illegal economy (Jeffries 2011; Payne and Hamdi 2008; Oware 2011).

Posts that label the rappers gay have to acknowledge these widely shared and plausible competing frames to prove that the kiss makes the rappers gay. Posts in this category focused on arguing that the rappers were not really family members (13%) with only a few refuting the idea that they were emulating the Mob (2%) or that they had an illegitimate bond (2%). We will discuss the rebuttal to the family frame in the “Worse than Gay” section, since that frame was the main one that those categories of posts tried to refute. We give an example of the illegitimate bond and not real mobster themes below.

Commenters who questioned the rappers’ bond argued that friends do not show respect or affection in that manner. Thus, ANOYMOUS says, “THAT AINT A SIGN OF RESPECT THEY JUST LIKE EACH OTHERS SOFT LIPS WHEN THEY’RE KISSING….LOL.” The post delegitimizes the kiss by labeling it as a sign of sexual desire, rather than a way that friends show respect. Similarly, commenter 5’3 takes on the mob frame in the following quote:

But then I saw MTV’s Sucker Free where Weezy and Baby were guests! And Weezy said and I quote “Black Mob… I love this man! I ride for this man! I die for this man!…I got girls wanna kiss me TOO! You’re girl wanna kiss me.”

Ummm…sorry Weezy F. Baby {Please say the Baby} thats still gay…

And correct me if I’m wrong- but its the Mafia not the Mob that kiss - and its NOT on the lips! Close to the lips, but not the lips and they embrace the face with both hands….

The commenter works to refute the claim, based in the hip-hop interpretive repertoire, that the kiss was borrowed from Mob culture, and was thus a legitimate form of male intimacy. The commenter says the kiss “is still gay” as though the issue is settled. But he or she justifies the interpretation by questioning the claim that the kiss was true to Mob culture, saying, “its the Mafia not the Mob that kiss- and its NOT on the lips!” In this way, commenters acknowledge and rebut competing frames that could be used to treat the kiss as a legitimate expression of masculinity within hip-hop culture.

The posts that label Lil Wayne and Baby as gay are absolute in their stigmatization of the rappers. Not only do they label the rappers as gay, they construct homosexuality as absurd, disgusting and threatening, characterizations that are typical of homophobia (Green 2005). Their attachment to heteronormativity prevails, displacing the respect they had for the rappers because of their “swagger” or for being “hardcore ass brothas.” Many bloggers are moved by their antigay bias to discriminate against the rappers. For instance, snugz says “dis niggaz r f*ckin gay straight up 4real i neva wil listen 2 a nuther song of his gay ass.” Commenter sooman sounds more remorseful when he says, “its too bad to think these guys are gay..dope music but no way in hell am i listening to 2 homos rapping.” Thus, commenters who label the rappers gay enforce heteronormativity and are vigilant about the appropriate behaviors for being a properly masculine thug.

Not Gay

The second most popular evaluation of the kiss was that it does not prove that Lil Wayne and Baby are gay (35%). These commenters felt the rappers are actually expanding the strict norms of heterosexual behavior by demonstrating that men can kiss and not be gay. Posts in this category draw on the same frames within hip-hop culture to prove that the rappers are straight that commenters who labeled the rappers gay dismissed. The most prevalent frame was that the kiss was familial (57%), followed by male bonding (21%) and that it was a Mob-inspired show of respect (8%). Thus, posts in this category draw on the same hip-hop interpretive repertoire as the posts that label the kiss gay to argue the opposite point of view. Yet, the more casual sexual worldview of the fans who labeled the rappers straight meant that they interpreted the kiss differently than those who labeled the rappers gay and worse than gay.

Commenters who see the rappers as straight believe that the sexual and gender norms are too tight in the black community and in hip-hop culture. In keeping with their casual sexual worldview, they did not think one gender transgression was enough to re-categorize the rappers’ sexuality (Brekhus 1996). Commenter Standard makes this point, saying,

Black men can’t even show love for one another without the fear of being called gay - now two men in hip hop appear to kiss in a photo - it’s a big deal & gossip. No wonder kids get confused about sexuality and take everything to extremes. Straight black males have to constantly prove their straightness, gay males have to either be queens, or DL super thugs hate themselves and their sexuality…

The post criticizes the black community for over policing the norms of male intimacy. Men cannot “show love” for one another without being accused of transgressing the boundaries of legitimate gender and sexuality. The post draws on a thug love vision of male bonding to argue that the kiss is not a sign of homosexuality.

Indeed, the idea the rappers are just “showing love” to each other comes up often in posts that say the rappers are not gay. The phrase “show me love” is common in hip-hop and it hints at the emotional charge of bonds within the culture. Moreover, showing love is consistent with thug love discourse, where men have especially strong ties to each other forged from living thug life together (Jeffries 2011). The thug love/thug life narrative gives hip-hop an indigenous way to define kissing as heterosexual for reasons that are different from those that influenced the expansion of gender norms among white middle-class men.

Posts fill out the details of the rappers’ thug life to justify their claim that they are showing love, and thus, not gay. For instance, NetworKing says:

Me personally wouldn’t kiss another dude, but I’ve seen guys that are real close do strange things together. The y usally go through alot together… The fact that they do it in public in front of people shows that they arn’t gay. Just real close.

The posts suggest that this kind of intimacy happens when men “go through a lot together,” which is a key part of the thug life narrative.

This quote from imaboss_fupayme exemplifies the argument that the rappers were expressing thug love,

As I’m reading these comments, I can’t help but to be amused by how homophobic Black people can be. White people can kiss each other on the mouth all day, but when black people do it, we gotta be gay. Damn, it ain’t a picture of them laid up in the bed with Weezy’s ass in the air. THAT would be cause for concern. Just look at the picture for what it is: Niggaz showin (unconventional) love! (emphasis added)

This quote is characteristic of the “not gay” posts in that it attacks heteronormativity for its insistence that same-sex contact is necessarily sexual. Traditional hegemonic masculinity precludes men from touching each other; thus male touching must contain sexual desire. Posts that say that the rappers are not gay expose that claim as a lie, reminding the other commenters that homosexuality is defined by sexual contact, not just any contact between members of the same sex. Thus, imaboss_fupayme reviews what the picture does show, two men kissing, and what it does not show “a picture of them laid up in the bed with Weezy’s ass in the air,” which would be “cause for concern.” Instead of questioning Lil Wayne and Baby’s sexual orientation, commenters who say the rappers are “not gay” expanded the definition of masculine behavior. Nevertheless, redefining the bounds of heterosexuality is not the same as accepting homosexuality, since imaboss_fupayme would likely stigmatize the rappers for homosexual sex. The expansion of gender norms differs from the inclusive masculinity research, since it is not necessarily tied to a decline in homophobia.

Commenters in this category consistently say that the sexual norms in the black community are too stringent. Some posts speculate about why. For instance, a commenter named hautia says that the association of gayness with the spread of AIDS has tightened the norms around how men can show intimacy with each other, for fear of being labeled gay. The commenter says, “In today’s society with the epidemic of AIDS people are scared of the things that remotely look like the ‘wrong’ type of affection that are suppose to be exclusive to a man and a woman, not man/man.” Other commenters suggest that black culture has especially tight norms about male intimacy. Angel says, “you guys r fuckin dumb its part of how he grew up some cultures and family kiss eachuser like latin and italian and european people kiss eachuser on the cheeks or lips its like saying hello goodbye thank you anything….” Similarly, NetworKing says:

One thing I have noticed is that black people are very homophobic. You’ll see 2 white guys go head on in a deep senual kiss and they both be straight, but if u see to black guys they have to be gay. I think it’s our upbringing in Church that makes alot of us feel this way

The comments create a hierarchy where blacks are more homophobic than whites. They cast other blacks as “intolerant others,” which is similar to how middle-class white men cast marginalized men as intolerant within the hybrid masculinity literature (Bridges and Pascoe 2014; Barrett 2013). Yet, unlike hegemonic white men who only want to elevate their status, these commenters provide context to explain why the gender and sexual norms of the black community are stringent.

The frame that the rappers were imitating the Mob came up least in the data. This frame makes sense given hip-hop culture’s valorization of the Italian Mafia in its lyrics and imagery. The posts refer to this touchstone to justify their interpretation of the kiss as a symbol of respect. A commenter called sarcasm says:

They like to imitate the mafia. . . You know they think they’re either the godfather or Scarface. They said all they do is kiss on mouth like that imitating the mafia . . . who knows if it goes further than that but if it did I doubt they would be kissing like that in front of all them dudes!

Likewise, J says:

THAT’S JUST THEIR THING..IT’S A PECK..SHOW ME A PICK OF THEM HAVING SEX..THEN I’LL BELIEVE IT…ITALIAN MOBSTERS THAT BLACK FOLK ARE SO IN LOVE WITHE KISS ON THE CHEEK..AND IF THEY ARE GAY AT LEAST THEY NOT TRYING TO HIDE IT

Thus, the posts draw on hip-hop culture’s store of mob imagery to argue that the kiss is not sexual.

Two other things resonate with the broader literature on touch within male homosociality. First, the posts extend the boundaries of the kinds of touch that are legitimate, but still limit what kind of touch is okay. Thus, there is a lack of consensus between the two quotes about whether men in the Mafia kiss on the cheek or the lips to show respect. One gets the sense that this matters in determining whether the kiss is a legitimate expression of male bonding. As Eric Anderson (2008) found, youth culture still polices the bounds of legitimate male touch even while extending them.

The other finding that resonates with the literature is that what the kiss means depends on how publicly it happened. This idea, that the kiss cannot be a sign of homosexuality because it was too public, came up in several posts. Thus, sarcasm says, “I doubt they would be kissing like that in front of all them dudes!” if their behavior went “any further” in private. Lil Wayne and Baby could not actually have a sexual relationship in private if they were so open about kissing in public. Implicit in this comment is an acknowledgement of how heteronormativity limits the ways men can touch each other. Men are supposed to know the rules of behavior and fear being seen as homosexual. The penalty against being gay is so absolute that no man would challenge it. If you are flaunting the norms for male touch, you must not be homosexual. Kaplan (2005) says something similar about his interviewees’ willingness to push the boundaries of male touch in semi-public spaces, but not in private.

The family frame was by far the most prevalent one that commenters used to argue that the rappers were not gay. Since Lil Wayne and Baby typically explain the kiss as an expression of their familial bond, their kiss was beyond reproach. Many commenters drew on the information that Baby adopted Lil Wayne when he was 11 years old and that they refer to each other as “father” and “son” to support this interpretation. This quote from Lyn sums up this argument, “what’s wrong with kissing your father??” BabyBee06 agrees saying “[Lil Wayne] thinks of [Baby] as a father. So maybe that’s how they show they fatherly-son love.” These commenters accepted Lil Wayne and Baby’s explanation that their closeness was filial, not sexual.

The frames for interpreting the kiss as non-sexual overlapped. Thus, Nicole weaves in elements of thug love (expressed by mourning the death of a close friend) with the family frame by saying:

Man yall need to get off my brother like dat cuz if da pic is real da only reason dey kissin is cuz its a family tradition just in case one of them happens to die. So yall get off dat $***….wayne and birdman aint gay

Other commenters mention their esteem for the rappers as part of the explanation of why the rappers could not be gay. MISS.JAH says:

YO ON SOME REAL BOYS NEED 2 STOP FRONTIN WAYNE DAD DIED SO SINCE HE WAS YOUNG N HIS EYES BABY IS HIS DAD!!!!!!!!!! SO SHIT IF DATS HOW DEY SHOW DEY LOVE DEN FUC IT DATS HOW DEY DOIN IT WAYNE STILL DA BEST FUCKIN RAPPER ALIVE STR8 UP BOYS ACTIN LYKE DEY TONGUED EACH OTHER DOWN!!

This posts draws on aspects from the hip-hop interpretive repertoire that we have already seen: thug love (“SHOW DEY LOVE”) and family (“BABY IS HIS DAD”). The posts that label the rappers straight recuperate the kiss as a legitimate, albeit unusual, expression of closeness. They construct the kiss so that it fits within their overall argument that the rappers have a platonic relationship.

As we can see, posts in this category heavily rely on the family frame to argue that the kiss is not violating sexual and gender norms. Once they frame the kiss as familial, they shift the focus to deciding whether men kissing male family members on the lips is okay rather than to deciding whether the kiss is sexual or not. For people who buy the family frame, all of the other signs point to the kiss being platonic: Wayne’s reputation for sleeping with a lot of women and sleeping with desirable women marks him as heterosexual and gives him status, the fact that both Wayne and Baby are from tough parts of New Orleans with rumored gang connections bolster their claim to normative masculinity and works against seeing the kiss as sexual, and that the commenters view men kissing male family members on the lips as okay, and thus, not violating sexual norms.

Worse Than Gay

For some commenters (9%), the kiss meant Lil Wayne and Baby were not gay, but worse than gay. Under this view, homosexuality, while objectionable, was at least familiar and intelligible. This kiss was another thing altogether; it was strange because it did not fit easily within the bounds of homosexual behavior. A large number of the posts in this category dealt with sexual and gender norms (39%) and found them to be too lax (see Table 2). The posts were overwhelmingly focused on refuting the family frame that says that the rappers have a father–son relationship and were thus engaged in a legitimate form of intimacy. Half of the posts in this category say that the rappers are not like family and that is what makes the kiss worse than gay. They accuse them of perverting the father–son bond. In contrast, four out of 26 posts said they felt their bond was illegitimate (15%) and only one post mentioned and rejected the Mob frame (4%) (see Table 3).

One gloss on the kiss was that it showed that Wayne and Baby are in a pedophilic relationship. Several bloggers who believed this likened Baby to other public figures accused of pedophilia (e.g., R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, Catholic priests). cOREY demonstrates this comparison in the following quote,

Baby is the rap version of R-Kelly/Michael Jackson. He took Lil Wayne in when the nigga was a kid (11). New Orleans is notorious for homosexuality. The French Quarters is second only to San Francisco in gayness. I am not shocked at all that Baby played the Catholic Priest role and molested Lil Weezy as a child and made him his “roadie” lover, and Turk as well. I guess Baby was giving the nigga Di@! over Dollars! HOLLA! “Weezy F. Baby, please say the Baby!”

Drawing on the melodramatic imagination that is common in gossip, this post mentions several salacious sexual abuse cases to support its claim that the rappers are involved in a pedophilic relationship (Beer and Penfold-Mounce 2009).

This next post by oliand1 is noteworthy because of the distinction it makes between reading the kiss as homosexual or as being between father and son. It implies that a homosexual kiss would be legitimate, but a kiss between father and son is pedophilic and wrong.

I tell you what: I am certainly not homophobic, & in my eyes this shit has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that this is a father & son kissing & saying that IF they were involved in a homosexual relationship(?), then that is beyond SICK!!!!PERIOD!!!!

I really question this shit all the more with the audio. If Birdman preyed (no pun) on Weezy while he was young & looked to him 4 guidence, then that shit is a crime morally & legally & it should be addressed. I could care less if Weezy is a grown ass man now, if he is involved with his “Daddy”…

Like other posts in this category, this one denounces the kiss because of the family frame. If Lil Wayne and Baby are like family, then they should not be kissing that way. This interpretation sexualizes the kiss and reads their relationship as homosexual. But a homosexual relationship would only be wrong for this commenter if the rappers had a familial relationship.

In contrast, LEELO conflates homosexuality and child molestation to label the kiss as wrong. The post is playing off of the name of the rappers’ former group, The Hot Boys.

What should there new name be ?? The Bi-Boys ?– TheBrokeBackBoys — ? The Hot BI Boys ? The BIRDY BOYS

? The Molester and the Abused ? The FLamerS ?

The New Orleans Queens ?

This post treats “The Molester and the Abused” as equivalent to slurs for being homosexual, for example, “The New Orleans Queens.” Here, the kiss is only equally as bad as being gay, but for other posts, it is worse.

A more prevalent argument that emerged in the postings is that Wayne and Baby are not biologically related, and therefore, their claim to family status is offensive. In other words, they are not entitled to the roles and status that they are enacting through kissing because they are fictive kin. Take the following quote from hdizzle as an example,

That’s my thing. I don’t believe they’re gay but that’s what makes it worse. The fact that they are so affectionate towards each other but claim it as a father and son thing. Baby didnt start that “Lil weezy is my son” shit UNTIL everybody started leaving the label. I just think the “stuntin like my daddy” thing is weird on another level. They are just overly hung up on this daddy thing and it’s weird. (Emphasis added)

The kiss is worse than gay because the rappers usurp esteem that belongs to biological father and sons. “Worse than gay” bloggers seem to feel that Wayne and Baby are mocking a premier heterosexual institution, fatherhood, thus defiling heterosexuality. Commenter whoozdat underlines the illegitimacy of their bond, arguing that tattooing a child’s face on one’s chest is a privilege reserved for biological fathers.

My husband told me a while ago he felt they were funny because Baby got Lil Wayne face tattooed on his chest. That is not his biological son and plus it’s not a young Lil Wayne face but he grown and shit! Most people get their child’s baby face tattooed on them… (emphasis added).

The rappers’ thug masculinity exacerbated the commenters’ disapproval of the kiss. The kiss was galling because the rappers otherwise conformed to the hypermasculine norms of hip-hop culture. Thus, Godiva says,

Now to be honest I know gay men but honestly it didn’t look gay just nasty as can be. It was similar to how certain cultures kiss on the lips also known as a “holy” kiss. I’ve seen it done before but two dudes tatted and grilled up mouth-mouth. Thanks I’ll pass

This kiss is not “gay, just nasty as can be.” Like other posts in the category, the post does not denounce homosexual intimacy, per se. However, it does condemn this form of male intimacy because it features “two dudes tatted and grilled up mouth-mouth.” The post is making a distinction between mere homosexual kissing and kissing by two men with thug masculinity. The violation of masculine norms is what makes the kiss “nasty,” not the possibility that the rappers are gay. hdizzle says something similar: “I just think its inapropriate for two thug dudes wth a supposed father son relationship to be kissing in the mouth.” The fact that the rappers are supposed to be father and son makes the kiss “inappropriate,” but so does the fact that they are “two thug dudes.”

Ultimately, the posts in this category labeled the rappers as worse than gay because they could not place what type of intimacy the kiss represented. Some posts even said that the kiss would be legitimate if the rappers identified as gay. Since they do not claim homosexuality, they frustrate the categories the commenters would use to understand the kiss. Their frustration is intensified by the fact that Lil Wayne and Baby otherwise conform to stereotypical thug masculinity. Finally, many of the posts take issue with framing the kiss as an expression of family bonds. Mika touches on these points, saying:

Somthin just aint right. I dont know but I would feel comfortable knowing they was gay becuase then I could say oh they gay thats what gay dudes do they kiss each other, but he keeps insisting that its natural and nothiing is wrong with it becuase thats his “son”? thats whats weird about it to me, like there relationship is just I dont know….

It is the “I dont know”, or the inability to place the kiss in familiar categories, that is associated with the commenters labeling the rappers as worse than gay.

Discussion

In our study, the strength of one’s attachment to heteronormativity, indicated by sexual worldview, was the deciding factor in how fans labeled the rappers’ sexual orientation. Commenters who were most vexed by the violation of sexual and gender norms were the most likely to label the rappers gay or worse than gay. This suggests that the intensity of heteronormativity may predict a fan’s likelihood to label ambiguously sexual behavior as sexual.

As we have been careful to note, the key finding of the article is not that rap fans are unexpectedly tolerant, though several commenters rejected homophobia and questioned heteronormativity. Rather, we explore how fans assert boundaries around valorized thug masculinity when faced with the way hip-hop interpretive frames tended to construct the rappers as having an unusual, yet legitimate, masculinity. The commenters, encountering stigmatizing information about celebrities they admired, were forced to rethink and justify their ideas about sexuality and gender. Many people arrived at homophobic perceptions of two men kissing, as evidenced by the fact that 56% of the posts labeled the rappers gay and strongly stigmatized them because of it. Yet, a significant portion of commenters appeared less certain of the gender and sexual binaries they had taken for granted before trying to interpret the picture.

Thug love discourse makes the boundary between sexual and platonic intimacy between men blurry. This ambiguity incensed some commenters who strove to reassert the boundary by saying the kiss meant that the rappers were gay or worse than gay. Yet, paradoxically, the ambiguity about the boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate male intimacy also made it possible for some commenters to see the kiss as something other than a sign of homosexuality.

The literatures on hybrid and inclusive masculinity were not as helpful as they might have been for understanding how marginalized communities make sense of intimate male touch. The hybrid masculinity literature did help predict that fans who viewed the rappers as straight would create a hierarchy between themselves and “intolerant others” (Barrett 2013). Yet, that literature could not account for the understanding the commenters showed for why blacks may have stringent gender and sexual norms. This is because the hybrid masculinity literature examines how hegemonic masculinity distinguishes itself from marginalized masculinity and does not examine distinctions that marginalized group members make within group.

The inclusive masculinity literature was even less useful for predicting how homophobia would factor into the sense commenters made of the kiss. Some commenters claimed not to be homophobic, yet still labeled the rappers gay and stigmatized them because of it. As we have argued, those fans seemed as motivated by the need to protect the boundary around thug masculinity as by hostility toward homosexuality. On the other hand, while some commenters who labeled the rappers straight denounced homophobia, not all of them did. This suggests the factors that tie homophobia to rejection of the expansion of norms of male intimacy are more varied than the inclusive masculinity literature would suggest. In our research, a broadening of the norms of male intimacy was not necessarily tied to decline in homophobia.

Indeed, fans who labeled the rappers straight cited narratives and frames within hip-hop culture to do so. Their interpretive repertoire was different from that of hegemonic middle-class white men. Using the frames of thug love, family bonds, and the Mob, they were able to construct open physical tenderness between men as consistent with thug masculinity. The resources for interpreting the kiss that way were specific to the conditions of marginalized masculinity. Future research should examine how the specific concerns and conditions of marginalized groups shape their gender and sexual norms. Our research suggests that factions of hip-hop culture embrace open tenderness between men without necessarily challenging homophobia or sexism. Hip-hop’s ability to expand the bounds of masculinity, while not addressing gender and sexual inequality, sets it apart in the literature and deserves to be studied on its own terms.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Antonia Randolph is an assistant professor of Sociology in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Winston-Salem State University. Her research and teaching interests include diversity discourse in education, multicultural capital, non-normative black masculinity, and the production of misogyny in hip-hop culture. Her current book project, That’s My Heart, examines portrayals of intimate relationships and of black inner-life in hip-hop culture.

Holly Swan is a sociologist/implementation scientist at Abt Associates in the Division of Health and Environment. She has expertise in criminal justice, behavioral health, and health services mixed-methods research and evaluation.

Kristin Denise Rowe is a doctoral candidate in African American and African Studies (AAAS) at Michigan State University, with an interdisciplinary graduate specialization in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her research interests include body politics, standards of beauty, Black feminism(s) and sexuality, popular culture, and social media/ new media. Her current research engages Black women’s articulations of natural hair in film, television, prose, music, and the Internet as spaces that reveal both (re)negotiations of hegemonic standards of beauty and intimacies of embodied Black female subjectivities.

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